How would Kennedy, Khrushchev, and their governments be remembered if the CMC went hot?

[Jiraiyathegallant]

If the US and USSR fought the Cuban Missile Crisis, how would they be remembered afterwards?

Would they be seen as akin to Nazi Germany and their leadership as worse than Hitler? Or would the US see Kennedy as a heroic war time president akin to Roosevelt or Lincoln?

At this point, I don’t think most of the third world would be hit. What would they take from this? Would they come to mistrust Capitalism, Communism, Democracy, and Politburos?

I don’t know how rebuilt the world would be from a later nuclear war given how much more extensive the attacks would be, but how would the survivors of an 80s nuclear war view the leaders of the war?

Would people view these guys as worse than Hitler, or more like WWI where they are simply seen as having been lead into terrible decisions, or something completely unpredictable?

 

[Brazilianguy]

It would depend from which side you ask, americans would said that Kennedy was only protecting america and the russians leaders are the real devils, and the russians would said the same but with switched roles.
For people outside the hitted countries, they probable would see the leaders the way we see the WW1 leaders, but they wouldn´t think that it was unpredictable, because in the history the most probable scenario of the cold war (if you take all others disputes and conflicts in the human history) would be an WW3, our tl that is kind weird lmao.

 

[David Floyd]

I'm honestly not sure who in Russia would be left to ask.

 

[Amadeus]

Assuming that civilization still exists in the year 2021, Kennedy and Khrushchev would probably be the two most hated men of all time.

 

[Vabasion]

They’d both be hated. Humanity will survive, be set back immensely and huge sectors would die of starvation and deprivation. Both would be seen as worse than any other human being in history.

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

Kruschev would be venerated by the Posadists for initiating the nuclear war, to burn away capitalism, and to summon the socialist aliens who will be arriving any decade now...

 

[Lalli]

Assuming that civilization still exists in the year 2021, Kennedy and Khrushchev would probably be the two most hated men of all time.

Existing of human civilisation is certain. In 1962 Soviets hadn't technology which would had managed destroy United States and Canada. With good luck they can wipe some East Coast cities. USSR, Eastern Europe and Germany would are really wrecked. France and Britain bit better. Africa, Middle East and Southern Hemisphere would are fully intact. In 1962 nuclear weapons weren't effective enough to cause real nuclear apocalypse.

 

[Amadeus]

Existing of human civilisation is certain. In 1962 Soviets hadn't technology which would had managed destroy United States and Canada. With good luck they can wipe some East Coast cities. USSR, Eastern Europe and Germany would are really wrecked. France and Britain bit better. Africa, Middle East and Southern Hemisphere would are fully intact. In 1962 nuclear weapons weren't effective enough to cause real nuclear apocalypse.

Regardless, Kennedy would be blamed for the destruction of New York, Boston, DC, etc as it was his incompetence which led to the Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis. Around the world JFK would be seen as responsible for the genocide of the Russian people, and one of the worst mass murderers in history. He would be severely criticized for allowing the Missile Crisis to get so out of hand it led to nuclear Holocaust.

 

[Lalli]

Regardless, Kennedy would be blamed for the destruction of New York, Boston, DC, etc as it was his incompetence which led to the Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis. Around the world JFK would be seen as responsible for the genocide of the Russian people, and one of the worst mass murderers in history. He would be severely criticized for allowing the Missile Crisis to get so out of hand it led to nuclear Holocaust.

Probably depends whom you are asking. Leftists and speciality remaining communists would see JFK really bad light but right-wingers might are softer towards him altough they too would blame him from several mistakes. But they would give major guilty to Khruschev due his stupid gamble which effectively led to destruction of his country and deaths of hundred of millions.

 

[marathag]

They’d both be hated. Humanity will survive, be set back immensely and huge sectors would die of starvation and deprivation. Both would be seen as worse than any other human being in history.

CONUS would have been mostly untouched, while Europe east of Brittany, WP, USSR and Red China would be simply gone.

JFK would be treated as the Hero who saved the USA from those dastardly Communists, then depends on how he covers the recovery for later opinion, like
'Did he wait too long before striking the USSR'

Around the world JFK would be seen as responsible for the genocide of the Russian people

You mean the people in Africa, the Americas, India and Australia?

The Soviets are the ones who destroyed near all of Europe. The Second World has just been annihilated, Third World now gets to deal with just the USA

Soviets died for initiating WWIII

 

[Geon]

I don't like to toot my own horn but as to how Kennedy would be remembered here is a quote from a statement I made on a thread addressing that entitled Voices of Doomsday.

@Shevek23

On the subject of legacies, how does the country remember JFK? By and large they admire him. The handsome charismatic president who fought to the very end to try to find a way to end the crisis peacefully but was willing to fight...that is the JFK most people remember. Kennedy does have his critics on both sides of the political fence who argue either that he came on too strong and should have backed off on the blockade and trust to negotiations or he came off as too weak initially which was why the situation escalated. Kennedy is considered a hero and a martyr by many in this ATL.

 

[Amadeus]

Soviets died for initiating WWIII

Rather, millions of Soviet people lived in authoritarian state where they had no input in how the affairs of their nation were run. And because their hot-headed leader, who was not accountable to the people in free and fair elections, started WWIII they should be blamed in this situation? It seems pretty callous to not only punish a disenfranchised population for the sins of its leadership, but to punish them with extermination at that.

 

[Amadeus]

Probably depends whom you are asking. Leftists and speciality remaining communists would see JFK really bad light but right-wingers might are softer towards him altough they too would blame him from several mistakes. But they would give major guilty to Khruschev due his stupid gamble which effectively led to destruction of his country and deaths of hundred of millions.

I think right-wingers would argue that the Missile Crisis would not have happened had Kennedy sent US troops to support the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. If Kennedy isn't impeached and removed from office then he loses the 1964 election, supposing that the normal institutions of government are still functioning in a world where America's largest cities have been destroyed and large numbers of people are dying from nuclear fallout.

EDIT: Kennedy himself believed that if he mishandled the Missile Crisis, having already bungled the Bay of Pigs, he'd be impeached. I think users are underestimating the collective trauma and anger that would result from America being attacked by nuclear weapons, even if the US "wins" in a nuclear exchange with the Soviets.

 

[marathag]

EDIT: I think users are underestimating the collective trauma and anger that would result from America being attacked by nuclear weapons, even if the US "wins" in a nuclear exchange with the Soviets.

In the USA after WWIII, it would be a really bad time to be a Beatnik or anyone else left of center.
Lee Harvey Oswald likely would have been lynched when he was working in that Printing shop, reading Russian language materials and acting like a jackass towards the other employees

 

[Amadeus]

In the USA after WWIII, it would be a really bad time to be a Beatnik or anyone else left of center.
Lee Harvey Oswald likely would have been lynched when he was working in that Printing shop, reading Russian language materials and acting like a jackass towards the other employees

Probably, but that anger would also be directed towards the political leadership of the time. America would become a more right-wing country; someone like Goldwater (supposing that the U.S. Senate isn't knocked out by Soviet missiles) would easily be elected in this ATL. (FWIW I say this as a liberal Democrat and an admirer of JFK who would never have voted for Goldwater myself. The fact is that if JFK is seen as having so mishandled the Cold War that hundreds of thousands, even millions, of Americans die then he'll probably be regarded as one of America's worst Presidents).

 

[LordPez]

Both would be hated, and rightfully so. Kennedy and Khrushchev would both be seen as insane brinksmen whose actions led to tens of millions of deaths over saber-rattling. This would be a situation where ICBM placement (first in Turkey, then in Cuba) is treated as a casus beli for effectively ending the world. Whichever power fires on the PRC (itself without WMDs until 1964) or another neutral state would be committing naked genocide with no justification other than "If we lose so does everyone else". Expect massive economic collapse to follow the nuclear exchange as the Soviet Bloc implodes into anarchy and all US investments into Western Europe evaporate in minutes. The US likely survives as a state minus several metropolises on the East Coast (DC, NYC, Miami at a minimum), but now has to face the dual problems of a non-existent economy (massively weaker options for foreign trade because you can't be the global reserve currency or make favorable trade deals when the entire non-aligned movement hates your guts and the 1st world is trying to survive radiation poisoning) and a massive amount of rebuilding.

Khrushchev would probably be hated more (USSR would be gone, full stop), but Kennedy wouldn't be seen as much better after he gets more Americans and American allies killed in 30 minutes than every war in US history combined. Even the right wing anti-communists would despise him because he shit the bed in Cuba with the Bay of Pigs and then proceeded to fumble the CMC so badly the worst possible outcome occurred. Republicans dominate US government for 30+ years, but are too busy with recovery to be an interventionist superpower, let alone the OTL hyperpower it became.

 

[marathag]

Whichever power fires on the PRC (itself without WMDs until 1964) or another neutral state would be committing naked genocide a justification

Gen Powers, though not part of current SIOP, probably would have ordered nuclear strikes on Chinese airbases to clear a corridor into the USSR for his B-52s

They were unfriendly, and in the way.

(massively weaker options for foreign trade because you can't be the global reserve currency or make favorable trade deals when the entire non-aligned movement hates your guts)

But the USA is the only game left in town. Moscow, that got hit with over a gigaton worth of Nuclear weapons. That Metro area would be scoured past bedrock.

London and Paris likely green glass craters fro SS-4 and SS-5 IRBMs Doubtful that DC or NYC get hit at all. There are no other major financial centers left

Foreign trade would be done in Dollars, or not at all.

There is no other Power on Earth, beside the USA. That's how you get World Government. You have to be part of the UN, and the USA controls that now. Third World Nations can't play the Superpowers off one another any longer

There is just the USA, and they are pissed.

Would this be a happy World?
No.
But that's how it would shake out

 

[Alanith]

Both would be hated, and rightfully so. Kennedy and Khrushchev would both be seen as insane brinksmen whose actions led to tens of millions of deaths over saber-rattling. This would be a situation where ICBM placement (first in Turkey, then in Cuba) is treated as a casus beli for effectively ending the world. Whichever power fires on the PRC (itself without WMDs until 1964) or another neutral state would be committing naked genocide with no justification other than "If we lose so does everyone else". Expect massive economic collapse to follow the nuclear exchange as the Soviet Bloc implodes into anarchy and all US investments into Western Europe evaporate in minutes. The US likely survives as a state minus several metropolises on the East Coast (DC, NYC, Miami at a minimum), but now has to face the dual problems of a non-existent economy (massively weaker options for foreign trade because you can't be the global reserve currency or make favorable trade deals when the entire non-aligned movement hates your guts and the 1st world is trying to survive radiation poisoning) and a massive amount of rebuilding.

Khrushchev would probably be hated more (USSR would be gone, full stop), but Kennedy wouldn't be seen as much better after he gets more Americans and American allies killed in 30 minutes than every war in US history combined. Even the right wing anti-communists would despise him because he shit the bed in Cuba with the Bay of Pigs and then proceeded to fumble the CMC so badly the worst possible outcome occurred. Republicans dominate US government for 30+ years, but are too busy with recovery to be an interventionist superpower, let alone the OTL hyperpower it became.

The Non-aligned movement can hate the US all they want. But the US is now the only game in town.

 

[CalBear]

Assuming that civilization still exists in the year 2021, Kennedy and Khrushchev would probably be the two most hated men of all time.

Nikita would be. There wouldn't be enough Russians left to form a useful polling group.

Folks tend to vastly overestimate the Soviet Union's true nuclear strike capacity during Cuban Crisis. Probably the ONLY Soviet Missiles that would have struck the U.S. would have been any that survived a U.S. strike in Cuba. The 1962 Soviet ICBM was very small and, along with the bomber force, almost unbelievably vulnerable to counterforce. Any Soviet Tu-95 that actually made it into the air (good luck with that*) would have faced enormous odds to make any sort of successful attacks, especially in the face of nuclear armed Nike SAM and Genie nuclear tipped AAM. This is not to say that the U.S. or Western Europe would have come out unscathed, even half a dozen nudets over American and/or European targets would have been a disaster. That said, the winners (in this case, survivors)are the ones who write history, pretty much all of those are going to be in the West.

* Unlike the U.S. "Fail Safe" program, which put a number of armed B-52s on constant patrol within a few hours of their targets in the USSR, Soviet Bombers were not allowed to even fly with Special Weapons on training flights or have them loaded into aircraft on ground alert meaning the chances of them getting into the air hovered close to zero. While the then new Minuteman solid fuel missile and the U.S. Polaris force were ready to go as soon as the order was given the Soviets could not maintain a ground launch status for their ICBM, it took several hours to prepare to launch even the better system, and the U.S. was fully aware of the bases for these weapons (which, remarkably, were NOT stored in silos but in above ground hangers/bunkers). All the Soviet sites were within range of U.S. ICBM and SLBM, meaning they had 30 minutes to live from the turn of the keys. Any that accidentally survived would be targeted by B-52s/B-58 carrying megaton gravity bombs. Much the same situation existed in Eastern Europe, where the Soviets simply did not maintain anything like the "Hot Pad" cocked and locked status that NATO Nuclear Armed (i.e. Dual Capable) forces maintained. These differences, especially the matter of having to load warheads before being able to launch either missiles or bombers, including tactical systems in the WP states, gave the West a crucial "tell" that allowed NATO/U.S. forces to be ready to fire when the Soviets were still "loading their guns".

 

[Resurgam]

Nikita would be. There wouldn't be enough Russians left to form a useful polling group.

Folks tend to vastly overestimate the Soviet Union's true nuclear strike capacity during Cuban Crisis. Probably the ONLY Soviet Missiles that would have struck the U.S. would have been any that survived a U.S. strike in Cuba. The 1962 Soviet ICBM was very small and, along with the bomber force, almost unbelievably vulnerable to counterforce.

I remember there was a "CMC goes hot" what if essay that has the US getting a bit of a bloody nose... and the Soviet Union and the Pact being evaporated. The rest of the world is not happy with the US.

Also, Newt Gingrich was a government historian.